


The Maze

by mssrj_335



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Angst, Appropriate Use of the Force, F/F, Feelings of claustrophobia, Force Bond (Star Wars), Force Visions, Force-Sensitive Finn (Star Wars), Frottage, Happy Ending, Horror, Hurt/Comfort, Hypothermia, Inappropriate Use of the Force, Longing, M/M, Main pairing Finn/Poe, Minor Rey/Rose Tico, Mission Fic, POV Alternating, Post TROS, Rescue Missions, Sharing Body Heat, Slightly grotesque imagery, a little trio humor, feeeeelings, gotta have a happy end folks, sharing dreams
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-21
Updated: 2020-03-23
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:27:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 10
Words: 15,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23240941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mssrj_335/pseuds/mssrj_335
Summary: Poe goes missing and Finn, along with Rose and Rey, go after him. But, the mission is not at all what they expect. Horrors crawl in the icy subsurface of Vandor, calling from the Dark Side to test them, to test Finn. Only through the maze can Poe be found. And that's if his friends can make it in time.
Relationships: Poe Dameron/Finn
Comments: 68
Kudos: 102





	1. Finn

**Author's Note:**

> this spawned partly from the myth of the minotaur and partly from a nightmare i had
> 
> is complete, will be posted in parts
> 
> additional warnings may be posted at the start of chapters

“What do you mean he’s missing?”

Rose winces. He hadn’t meant for his tone to be that harsh but a news bomb like that doesn’t exactly come with kid gloves. 

“It’s exactly what it sounds like. Poe went to recover fuel from a depot on Vandor, the Crispin Imperial Depository. It’s been 24 hours since he’s checked in.”

Finn feels his stomach drop. He knew Poe was gone; he’d called his first night out. Finn should’ve been checking in but with all the activity on the base, he’d barely been able to drag himself to and from his bed. But a day? That wasn’t long enough to get into trouble, surely.

“Why are we worrying?” he asks, maybe in denial. “He’s been radio silent for a lot longer than that before.”

Rose exchanges a look with Rey and nothing about that is good.

“We received a distress signal,” she says, and his stomach drops the rest of the way to the floor. “Encoded. It came through last night and we just decrypted it.”

“Well then we—”

“Yeah,” Rey cuts in, striding to the hanger, “we gotta go.”

“ _Falcon’s_ all fueled up, Connix knows we’re leaving,” Rose follows, shouldering an enormously stuffed pack. “We brought some things for you. Emergency rations and supplies, distress beacon, flares. Just about everything I could think of.”

He doesn’t miss the way Rey smiles softly and rolls her eyes. But he sighs in relief as she tosses him a pack of his own.

“Don’t worry,” she says over her shoulder, allaying the fear he hadn’t given words yet. “We’ll find him.”

A tension in his chest eases as he follows Rey and Rose to the ship. They could’ve told him sooner but they waited, prepared everything just so. They knew exactly what he would want and they anticipated that he’d want to leave now. Like _now_ now.

Stars, it’s good to have friends.

—

Vandor looks cold even from space. Rey eases the ship into the atmosphere and Finn watches the temp reading drop and drop and drop. Kriff, that’s cold. A little knot of dread builds in his chest as the ship descends. If Poe had been caught out in the open, he could’ve died from exposure already. Finn takes a deep breath in and tries his best not to panic at the thought. He can’t be dead, Finn would’ve felt it. There’s no way he wouldn’t have. He’s sure of that much.

“We put thermo gear in your pack,” he hears Rose say. She’s already elbow deep in her own bag, pulling out clothes for herself and, apparently, for Rey.

“His ship is still at the depot,” Rey calls from the front. “The signal isn’t coming from there though.”

The ship lurches as she skims the surface, following the signal. Finn takes another deep breath and heads up to the cockpit. Rey is already running scans, looking for evidence of Poe anywhere. He peers out the transparisteel, the knot in his chest tightening to something warm, familiar.

“Wait,” he murmurs, putting a hand on the back of Rey seat like that would be enough to stop the ship.

Apparently, it is, because Rey eases off the throttle and looks back at him.

“What is it?” she asks softly.

“You feel that?”

It’s _something_ , he’s sure of that much. Something dark with a familiar hot spark at its center.

“Finn, is that—”

Finn’s eyes lock on a place in the snow and nods. “Yeah,” he breathes, “it’s gotta be.”

Below them is a sheer cliff. And in the side of the cliff is a hollow opening. He’s not exactly sure how he knows but he’s absolutely positive that Poe is through that opening. The _something_ burns a little hotter, a little brighter in his chest.

“He’s there.”

It takes a while to land and even longer to trudge the kilometer distance to the opening. Despite the thermo gear, the cold is cutting. At last, the cliff looms before them. The wind is howling through the hollow, screeching a shrill cry that grates on the nerves and sets the teeth on edge. Finn edges closer to the opening and grips his blaster tight to his shoulder.

“Are you sure that’s the way?” Rose asks, shifting from foot to foot nervously.

He gives her a side-eye glance. “I’m sure.”

“But that’s—that’s underground,” Rey falters.

Finn looks back at her and his expression softens. Her hand is gripping Rose’s tight, eyes wide and mouth downturned.

“You can wait on the ship,” he says, “if you like. I can go.”

The fear immediately falls from her face, replaced by irritation. “No, you won’t. Not without me.”

Rose glances back and forth between the two of them but doesn’t let go of Rey’s hand. “Why does it matter that it’s underground?” she asks.

“Remind me to tell you when we’re out of this skughole,” Rey murmurs, unholstering her blaster.

Finn leads the way deeper into the dark. The howling subsides to a distant shriek then to nothing. Silence nearly reigns over them, interrupted only by the low, shuddering tremolo of cracking ice. The hollow opens into a downturned tunnel, then into a vast blue cavern the color of decaying sapphires. Round columns of ice jut into the air and tower out of sight. Bioluminescent creatures glimmer in the darkness, coating the icy walls in a spackle of pearlescence. Finn takes a few more steps toward the mouth of the ice column forest. Countless versions of himself are reflected back to him in varying shades of distortion. The way forward is only marked by the smallest version of himself, growing larger and larger as he nears the edge.

It’s a maze.

It’s a gods-damned maze.

The ice columns stretch forward in meandering patterns, and from his vantage point it looks like a mirage, bathed in a fine mist. A tremor of ice reverberates through the cavern, the ice forest tinkling with motion. He pulls up short at the maze ingress.

“Whoa.”

Rey huffs a laugh at him but Rose is far less amused.

“Ok, how are we supposed to get through _that_?” Rose’s voice inches up an octave.

“Blast it?” Rey shrugs.

“No!” Finn hisses. “The whole thing might come down.”

Rey squints at him. “That’s the idea?”

“And who’s to say Poe isn’t _in_ there?” Finn unshoulders his blaster and slings the strap around his back. “If we blast our way in, all that ice could fall. No telling how tall those things are. So let’s try not to touch anything.”

Rey and Rose exchange a glance before holstering their pistols. The ice forest yawns before him; damn what he wouldn’t give for a flashlight. Rey, ever observant, hands him her lightsaber. Finn raises an eyebrow but Rey wordlessly answers the question he hasn’t asked in a wave of her hand. With a gentle hum, her golden saber activates and lights the way ahead. Finn swallows, squares his shoulders, and takes a step forward. What greets him is dizzying. There are countless numbers of himself, all staring back in the soft, druzy light. He squints into the darkness, looking for his smallest self. It would only follow that _that_ reflection would eventually grow as he got closer. He finds the image and eases into the maze after it.

“It feels so dark here.” Rose’s voice isn’t more than a whisper and she’s right, in more ways than one. The silver iridescence of the wall creatures is filtered into dim nothingness and something oppressive taints the air. The mist has congealed, swirling around their feet. Finn can’t see more than ten meters in front of him with the saber’s light but he doesn’t say so.

He tries to focus. He counts his paces, hoping to be able to judge the distance. When he gets to one hundred, he notices the silent stretches are starting to become shorter. Neither Finn nor Rose nor Rey are saying anything but the dampened, icy silence around them is broken by the creaks of ice and something new.

Something awful.

An animal shriek tearing the air.

“Anyone want to guess what that is?” Finn asks, clenching a hand at his side. His feet don’t hesitate in their step but when Rey shoots back, “Nothing good,” he sucks in a sharp breath.

A divergence.

A split in the path appears and he stops.

“Which way?” Rey asks.

Finn sighs deep out his nose and closes his eyes. There, in the dark and the quiet, he can feel a glimmer whispering to him to go left. It’s faint but he’s almost sure it’s Poe.

Almost.

“I think we go left,” he says softly as another terrible, distant shriek vibrates through the air. It’s guttural, it can’t be human, but it stokes a panic in Finn’s chest he doesn’t want to admit.

“We keep going,” he says. He pulls a knife from his boot and passes it to Rose. “Mark the columns with the knife; we should be able to find our way back if it dead-ends.”

“Finn, I don’t like this,” Rose hisses. “We don’t know how far this maze goes. We could be in here for days. Weeks. I mean, you saw how big the ice forest looked.”

“We have to.” He shrugs helplessly. “I’m pretty sure this is the way, but we can’t risk waiting or finding another route. It’s been three days already, we can’t waste any more time than we already have.” He swallows past the hard lump in his throat. “We have to find him.”

Rey’s mouth narrows but she nods sharply. “Ok.”

Rose sighs, exasperated, but doesn’t argue.

Finn takes another deep breath.

_Here we go_.


	2. Poe

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> warning for slightly grotesque descriptions and feelings of claustrophobia
> 
> say hello to the monster!

Poe wakes with a start and immediately smacks his head against something hard.

“Ah! What the—”

He tries to rub his head where it hurts but his arm won’t move. He looks around blearily and pulls on his arms again. A sharp bite of panic spikes through him as he realizes something.

He can’t move his arms. Or his legs. The only parts he _can_ move are his head and his fingers and _nothing_ about that is good. Another second and he realizes it’s ice. He’s in a wall of ice that seems to be creeping up his throat to cover him. His thermal clothing is keeping him at temp but that means nothing to the chill settling where the ice has found his bare skin.

Now _that_ is definitely panic-inducing. How the hell did he get in this mess? He racks his brain but finds a deep, disturbing blank. He remembers landing on the planet. The depot was empty, just like the report said, but all the old equipment was still present and functioning. Loads of unclaimed coaxium, leftover from Imperial occupation, sat in the depot just waiting to be taken. He remembers loading his transport, remembers the deep chill, a darkness—

Then nothing more.

Instead of dwelling on it, he tries escape again, pulling and pushing and thrashing but getting nowhere. Kriff but the ice is solid. It feels like durasteel around his limbs and the panic, claustrophobic and smothering, spikes again. Panting, he tries to clear his head, come up with some kind of plan to get out of whatever hellhole he’s in, when he hears a voice.

“Why do you wake, warmonger?”

The sound is slippery, rasping. His eyes pin to a figure in the gloom, barely outlined in the dim light. He can’t pinpoint exactly what he’s seeing but the panic he’s feeling starts morphing into something terrified.

“What the hell is this?” He knows his voice is shaking but he tries for bravado anyway. “Mind tellin’ me why you’ve got me trussed up in ice like some wampa snack?”

The figure shifts and Poe can just make out the form of an arm, a torso, an elongate face burdened with horns. It doesn’t come any closer but it doesn’t need to. It’s horrifying enough at that distance.

“The ice will consume you, as it consumes all.” Its speech is lilting, hissing as it breathes; a whisper as it inhales, deep and guttural as it exhales. “The ice holds all it deems savage.”

The creature shuffles and the ice shivers with the force of its step. His eyes widen; it’s coming closer.

“Lemme out of this kriffin’ wall,” he spits. Every part of him is petrified except his mouth. It’s the only thing keeping him from losing it. The light reveals long, twisted arms that drag the floor, cloven hooves and jackknife legs. “Call me a savage, huh. Get me outta here and I’ll show you what kinda savage you’re dealing with.”

A match strikes and white phosphorescent light blinds him. He squeezes his eyes shut, absolutely because the light hurts and _not_ because he’s afraid.

“Your friends…will suffer the same fate.”

A glimmer of terror and hope shoots through him. Friends?

“Who’s here? Rey?” he demands. “Finn? I swear to you, if you hurt them, I will take personal pleasure ensuring your end.”

Not for the first time, he wishes he was more in tune with the Force like Rey. Like Finn. If he was, he could feel them for real, not just the tight heat in his chest that sinks in when he thinks about Finn. That feeling is creeping in now, traitorous and suffocating. A part of him desperately thinks Finn really is here, that he is coming to the rescue like some kriffing hero in a child’s story.

But he probably doesn’t even know Poe is in danger. He’s been gone for days or even weeks at a time without checking in before; he hasn't been gone long enough to worry yet. As he is now, he can’t even reach the distress beacon in his jacket lapel to activate it.

So no, as much as he wants it to be true, the creature must be lying.

No one is coming.

He can feel hot breath ghosting over his face but he doesn’t open his eyes and he doesn’t drop his facade. Even at the end, he can’t give in. completely.

“Maybe the ice’ll do me a favor and eat _you_ when it’s done with me.”

There is a pause, an infinite moment hanging torpid in the air. He sucks a breath in and chokes on the smell.

“Open your eyes,” the creature wheezes in its sibilant tongue, “and know your fate, warmonger.”

A terrible, oppressive chill forces its way down his throat and into his bones. He doesn’t want it, no part of him wants to open his eyes, but they stutter up against his will.

Bones.

The first thing he registers are bones and his stomach heaves. Then black curving horns, then eyes, white and lifeless and about a hands-breadth from his face. In the white light, he can see every infinite detail of a Kod’yok skull staring at him, its black tongue lolling from the gap in its fleshless cheeks.

Mindless, nameless fear swells through him, strangling his scream. The creature draws back, hefts its phosphorus torch higher. Its body—misshapen as a child’s drawing—is rotting, a fetid odor emanating from purplish pustules and choking the air, but the torch reveals something even more horrifying.

In the unforgiving light, beneath a fine layer of ice, he sees them.

Bodies.

_Faces_.

Creatures of countless species—humans included—trapped beneath the ice, their faces twisted and distended into abject pictures of unutterable horror. Hands and claws and limbs are frozen in place, forever scratching at the ice to never escape. He sees himself with them, clear and distinct, and it makes his stomach turn again. The creature bawls, arms raised, triumphant.

His mind spins, the eyes of dead, frozen faces center on him, watching, waiting.

_Welcoming_.

Ice at his neck creeps inexorably upward.

The creature reaches for him, touches his forehead with one rotted finger and it finally escapes him.

He screams, and everything goes dark.


	3. Finn

Finn stops dead in his tracks and clutches at the ice, panting. His knees are weak with the fear ripping through him. It’s familiar, sick and tangible, but it’s not his own.

Not his own, but Poe’s.

_He’s_ _alive_.

And he’s _terrified_.

“Did you feel it?” Rey pulls up short behind him, horror in her voice.

“Feel what?” Rose asks. She pulls the blaster from the holster at her thigh and looks up and down the mirrored path.

Rey doesn’t answer but she grips his arm tight. “Poe?”

“Yeah,” he pants, trying to regain his composure.

Then he hears it.

The same horrific screech as before and something new, an echo of a very human scream, reverberating off the walls of ice, deforming into something unnameable. A vision forces its way in front of his eyes. Unholy terror steals the weight of his limbs and the logic of his mind.

He starts running.

He no longer sees himself in the mirrored maze. All he can see is Poe, trapped in ice, screaming endlessly. It’s solid and clear and more terrifying than anything he’s ever known. He can hear Rey and Rose shouting after him but he doesn’t stop. The feeling, the horror, guides him through the maze, alternately chased and led by distortions of himself. The way forward twists and turns, inverts. Gravity as he knows it shifts, pulls his feet from the floor to the wall to the ceiling and suddenly he’s falling.

He snaps to with a shout, escaping the visions only to find he’s dropping. He’s falling up. Or down? He doesn’t know; all he knows is that he is. The ice columns are sliding past him, a new sort of ground approaching his feet. With a grunt and a roll, he lands hard. Not hard enough to break anything but enough to knock the wind out of him. Rey’s lightsaber skitters out of reach and everything goes dim.

“Finn!”

“Finn, stop! Where are you?”

Rey and Rose are still yelling for him and he rolls onto his back. He sees them, hanging from the ceiling about fifteen meters up. Down? He’s not exactly sure and he shakes his head, trying to clear it.

“Hey! Over here!” He sways and gets to his feet. Vertigo washes through him, making him stumble, but he cups his hands around his mouth and calls, “Up here!”

Rey and Rose look up at the same time, twin expressions of astonishment on their faces.

“How the hell are you doing that?” Rey shouts, pacing nervously above—below?—him.

“I don’t know! I was running then I was falling, I don’t have a better explanation than that.”

“Must be a gravity well, an inversion,” Rose says thoughtfully but he barely hears her. The mist is creeping in, muffling any and all sound around him. “But why did it stop?”

“It doesn’t matter why,” Rey retorts, “we’ve got to get up there somehow. Hold on!”

Rey takes a few steps back, then bounds up, propelling herself toward him with the Force behind her.

“Rey—”“Wait—”

Rose and Finn cry at the same time but too late, she’s already airborne, ascending five meters, then ten. For a second, he thinks she might actually make it but at the height of her arc she slows, stops, and drops back to Rose. It’s too far, even for someone like Rey. Force jump or no, the gravity well is stronger and Rose catches her as she stumbles on the landing. Before she’s even got her feet back, Rose is chastising her, fwapping her soundly with a glove.

“What were you thinking?” Rose smacks her several times and Finn resists the urge to say thank you. “You can’t just power through a gravity well! It’ll smash you flatter than a Bantha-butter pancake.”

“How else are we gonna get up there?”

“I don’t know but I do know dragging you out of here with a broken ankle is not on my agenda!”

Rey flaps her hands uselessly in Rose’s direction. “So, what? You have a rope or something in that pack, Miss Prepared?”

“No, but how would that help us anyway? That’s up, remember? Maybe you should think before—”

“Guys!”

Finn’s shout cuts through their bickering and he’s relieved that they actually listen. The mist is closing in further and it’s getting harder to see them.

“Keep looking down there,” he calls. “If you find Poe, head back to the ship! I’ll meet you there when I get out of here!”

“Be careful!” Rey’s voice is muffled and that’s the last he sees of them before the icy mist covers them completely.

He sighs and finally looks down at his own level. It’s the same as where he fell from: an endless maze of mirrored ice. The fear he’d felt before is starting to creep back in and his skin rolls with it. He stretches his feelings out, seeking that familiar warmth he’d held as a comfort through the maze but finds it’s diminished.

Something has happened to Poe, that much he’s sure of. He can still feel him, glowing in his chest, so that is some comfort. But how long will it last?

He feels sick to his stomach. With a grunt, he scoops up Rey’s lightsaber, ignites it, and gets his bearings. His smallest reflection is staring back at him from a distance, egging him onward.

He’ll find them. He’ll find Poe. He has to believe that.

One foot in front of the other, he presses on.


	4. Rey

Rey watches a moment longer until the top of Finn’s head completely disappears. Once he’s gone, she wraps her arms around herself and tries to breathe evenly in the gloom. The dark, oppressive feeling is so much worse with Finn gone. Being underground is _not_ helping her composure and she struggles to get a handle on her emotions.

“He’ll be ok.”

Rey’s ashamed to admit she jumps at Rose’s soft voice. The commander reaches out, not to smack this time but to comfort. Rey swallows and tries to hide the way she shivers at Rose’s gloved touch.

“We’ll be ok, too.”

Rose’s big, dark eyes are so earnest, sincere. Rey blinks rapidly a few times and has to nod to tear herself away from that look.

“Of course,” she says, clearing her throat. She straightens, pulling herself back together, and glances at Rose. “You’re right. Seriously though, do you have anything in that pack that might help us get out of here?”

Rose’s mouth presses into a line and she unshoulders her bag. From it, she pulls a glowstick, activating the light in it with a crack.

“I thought we were looking for Poe?” Roses asks, her face shadowed in the faint green glow. 

Rey hums but starts back the way they came. “I don’t think we’ll find him here,” she admits.

“What about Finn?”

“I think the best we can do for them is to get to the ship and be ready for them.”

Rose catches her by the arm and she freezes. “We can’t abandon them,” Rose says hotly. “Finn wants us to keep looking; surely we can do that.”

“We’re not abandoning them.” Rey wrenches her arm away but immediately feels guilty at the look on Rose’s face. She sighs. “Look, Finn is better at feeling, at _knowing_. He’s better than I’ll ever be. I can feel that Poe is here somewhere but I can’t feel the way.”

Rose’s face screws up in anger. “But—”

“Even if I could, I suspect this cave is more than we think it is. I’ve felt…something. You felt it, too. The dark.”

Rose purses her lips.

“Whatever that is, it’s separated us. It wants Finn, it’s opening the path only for him. I don’t know how and I don’t know why. All I do know is that if you and I look for them in here, we’ll never find them. And we may never get out.”

A beat of silence stretches between them but Rose seems to be weighing her words.

“So we get out,” Rose says at last. “We get the _Falcon_ , and we find another way in.”

It’s an unspoken agreement but something loosens between Rey’s shoulders. She nods.

“Fine.” Rose grips the glowstick tighter and marches forward, lighting the way. “Come on, then.”

Rey follows.

The silence is tight around them and draws long. Every so often, Rose stops and inspects the ice columns, looking for the marks she left behind. Rey keeps one eye on Rose’s back and another on the dark, empty path yawning behind her. Her fingers itch for her saber; she only hopes that Finn still has it. And that he doesn’t need to use it. There’s something pushing her on edge. It feels tight, cold between her shoulder-blades.

She stares into the blackness, at…whatever it is.

“That was stupid, you know. You really could’ve gotten hurt.”

Rey jumps at Rose’s voice. Again.

“Hey, take it easy,” Rose says, steadying her with a light hand. “It’s just me.”

Rey shakes herself. “Sorry.” She pauses, then says, “Sorry,” again. “I get caught up, I guess.”

“Clearly,” Rose says, but it’s gentler now. She squeezes Rey’s arm where she’s still holding her then starts forward again. “So what did you mean, when you said Finn is better at feeling?”

Rey tries to focus on Rose’s voice, on her question, but the darkness pulls at her again. She doesn’t follow, rooted to the spot. Rose stops and adjusts her grip on her pistol.

“What is it?” she asks, voice low.

Rey takes a steadying breath in and tears her gaze away from the dark. “I…don’t know. It’s probably nothing. Just paranoia.”

She quickly smiles at Rose but she can tell she’s not convincing.

“What did you say?” she asks by way of distraction.

It takes Rose a second to catch up but when she does, she shakes her head and says, “About Finn. You said he’s better at feeling. What does that mean? There’s not exactly books on you Jedi; I want to understand.”

Rey smiles again, this time more genuine. “I’m not exactly sure how to explain it myself,” she says, following Rose again as she snorts and moves on. “Leia once told me what she’d learned from Luke, about the old Order. Some Jedi were fighters, Guardians. They felt the Force more physically, like I do.”

She chanced a glance at Rose’s back. The commander wasn’t looking but she did seem to be listening. “What about the others? Surely not all Jedi were guardians.”

“They weren’t,” Rey agrees. “Some were like Finn, like Leia too, I guess. She called them Consulars. They were diplomats, feeling their way through situations, negotiating, to find the best outcome.”

“Considering how many ‘situations’ Finn has to negotiate with you and Poe, it’s no wonder he’s good at it.”

Rey falters for a second until she sees Rose is looking back at her with a smirk.

Teasing. Right.

Rey laughs, a little helplessly. “If we find him, I promise I won’t argue with him for a week.”

“Not if,” Rose smiles, stopping just long enough to squeeze her shoulder before trudging on. “When.”

Rey’s breath catches in her throat. She wants to say something but whatever it is evaporates when she hears a noise behind her. A chittering, clacking, scraping noise that starts to grow as she whips around. Rose’s hand clenches tight in the fabric of her thermojacket.

“What is that?” she hisses.

Rey is spared answering as a hideously pale, distorted version of herself sidles into the light. For a second, all she can do is stare. Whatever she had expected to rise from the gloom, this was not it. Rey counts one, two, three—more and more copies of herself, of Rose, gathering around the light of the glowstick, eyes reflecting green, chittering and clicking like animals. The foremost copy’s head twitches, its eyes flick in their direction, claws clacking where its hands should be.

“Rey?”

She reacts the second the creature lunges forward, centering the Force in her palms and pushing as hard as she can. Her double topples ass over ears onto its compatriots, scattering them like pins. A split second, she shouts, “Run!” and the distortions surge forward.


	5. Finn

Finn stops again and tilts his head. He feels something, a tremor—like the groaning ice—rippling through the Force toward him. It’s not Poe, he knows that much. After the scream, Poe went dark. Finn can still feel him but he’s pretty sure Poe’s not conscious anymore.

This must be Rey. Or, at least, it feels like Rey.

She’s scared.

Finn’s hands clench and he growls in frustration, turning once on his heel then again, spiraling in indecision. He’s never felt so impotent, so helpless. What was the use of the Force if his friends were in danger and all he could do is _feel_ that? Should he go back?

No, Rey may be scared but he has no doubt she can handle herself. Plus, Rose is with her and stars know they can take anything this cave can dish. A part of him wishes he hadn’t run, that he was still with them, but a smaller part is certain that their separation occurred on purpose. He grits his teeth and hefts Rey’s lightsaber higher. With a deep breath in, and out, he re-centers on Poe’s spark glowing quiet and warm in his chest. Once he’s sure of the feeling and the direction, he starts again. The path meanders on until, around a corner, he spies the doorway to a brightly lit, empty space. His feet carry him a little faster; he’s getting closer to Poe, he can feel it.

He’s nearly to the end.

It’s been so quiet, not another sound for ages except the creak of ice, that he nearly jumps out of his skin when he feels the whisper of his name on the back of his neck.

He jumps, brandishes the lightsaber in front of him, twisting on the spot.

“Who’s there?”

The whisper echoes through the air, shivering up his spine into his ears, and he spins again. Hundreds of reflections of himself pirouette in sync.

Except one.

He sees his reflection at the end of the vestibule, just outside the yellow glow of Rey’s blade, standing stock still in the icy mirror. Its eyes glow in the light, reflecting green, then its arms and legs and head start twitching. A clacking, cracking noise cuts the silence and Finn sucks in a sharp breath.

It can’t be real.

It _can’t_ be.

The reflection peels itself from the ice, stepping out into the narrow hall. It staggers, solidifies, and before he can act, it’s rushing toward him with an ungodly, guttural shriek. He stumbles back with a yelp, landing ass-first in the bright, high-ceilinged room behind him. In a heartbeat, he’s vertical, raised the saber in front of him, ready to defend from the floor only to find that the mirror creature is gone.

He gasps, casts around frantically.

_Where did it go?_

As he lurches to his feet and turns, he sees something new. In the center of the room stands a stormtrooper, blaster raised and trained on him. Again, the saber rises in front of him; he’s running on instinct. The trooper fires once, twice, the bolts zinging through the air, off the lightsaber blade into the walls. Finn darts toward it, shouting wordlessly, intent on cutting the trooper down when it morphs.

One second, it’s a stormtrooper, blaster fixed at his head, the next it’s Poe, hand outstretched and grasping.

Only, it’s not.

It’s a shade of Poe. It must be a shade, a death shadow, because Poe’s warm, tan skin is blue-green with rot, the curls of his hair wet and limp, eyes cloudy white, lifeless. He can’t help it; Finn freezes, grip going slack.

“Poe?”

His voice escapes him in a croak, heart racing and aching and threatening to shatter as the lightsaber slips from his fingers.

_No._

_Poe…_

The shade shambles toward him, closing the distance, recognition in its milky eyes. A terrible, noxious smell violates his nose, his throat, choking his lungs, but all he can do is sink to his knees. Behind him, he hears the shuffle of more feet, more shadows and reflections leaking from the mirrored distortions of the ice forest and shuffling through the room’s aperture. Poe’s shade reaches for him. Its split, oozing lips curve into a trace of Poe’s roguish smile and Finn has to close his eyes.

“ _Finn_.”

His name rasps free of its throat next to his ear; his eyes shoot open. _Stars, it sounds just like Poe_. Hot tears stream down his face, his hands clench so hard in his lap they hurt.

“ _You wouldn’t hurt me, would you?_ ” The shade caresses his jaw, and Finn sobs.

It’s not real, it’s not real, it’s not—

“No,” he chokes. “No, Poe, I’d never hurt you, I—”

It doesn’t matter if it’s real or not. It’s Poe, and he means it. His heart aches with it, with unspoken words, an empty bed and empty longing. The shade leans down, the smell of its crumbling flesh making him gag. He feels curling, grasping hands tighten in his clothes behind him, but he doesn’t look away. He can’t. Every fiber of his body is in agony. All around him are copies, rotted, gangrenous facsimiles of Poe, of himself, leaning in, pulling him, covering him. He’s trapped, pinned by the shade’s white eyes.

Then, something shifts.

The shade smiles, but it’s not Poe’s smile.

The warm spark in his chest grows white-hot and he gasps. Poe— _real_ Poe—he remembers, is not dead. Suddenly, the air is clear. No stench of death surrounds him, no hands cling to him. He closes his eyes, feels the flare of Poe’s vitality pulse in his chest in time with his heart, and he breathes. Cold air rushes into his lungs.

He lurches forward.

Poe is alive. Of that, he’s certain. No shade could change that. He falls, on his hands and knees, and gasps again, coughs. Something black and slimy slithers out of his throat and pools in the ice beneath him.

Suddenly, he’s lucid and light. He’s sure, his direction clear.

It’s all been a trial, a test of will. When he opens his eyes, the shadows are gone and a doorway has opened in the ceiling. Down from it, a set of stairs. As sure as he is Poe’s alive, he’s certain of what he has to do. Finn crawls forward, snatching Rey’s lightsaber back up and fixing it to his belt. With a deep breath in, and out, he adjusts his pack, lays on his back and fits his boots to the underside of the stairs.

Another breath in, and out, and he looks at the hole in the ceiling. Everything below him is mirrored but he can clearly see a room beneath him that wasn’t there before. Poe is in that room, he’s sure. Something in his gut is screaming with it. He shifts a boot from one step to the next, watching himself in the mirrored surface. Gravity inverts and his feet carry him down into the dark. The stairs descend into the reflected room and, step by inverted step, he does the same.


	6. Rose

Rose pants, pushing Rey’s ass up and over a fallen ice column. In any other circumstance, she’d appreciate the fact but now she fires blindly into the blackness behind her. 

The shadows are still coming, peeling one by one from the mirror surfaces of the ice, but two shake and waver and disintegrate as her blaster fire finds its mark.

“Come on!” Rey shouts, reaching down from above her. “We’re almost there!”

She can’t remember who started shooting but she does remember what Finn had said. It matters but she hopes he was wrong. Rose grits her teeth and fires again, this time deliberately at the ice columns nearest to her.

The whole ice forest is coming down and she prays to the Universe and any deity listening that Finn and Poe aren’t being crushed in the debris. Her blaster is hot through her gloves—too hot—but she fires once more for good measure before she reaches for Rey’s hand. The creatures are only a few meters away and closing, their claws clicking, teeth clacking.

“Rose!”

Then she feels it. A putrid white claw closes around her ankle and pulls her in the opposite direction. Rey’s hazel eyes are wide, frantic, she pulls with too much force. Rose feels something in her shoulder pop and she shouts. It hurts, _stars_ it hurts, but it’s not enough to free her foot. With a twist and a jerk, she kicks at the creatures. Rey, thank the maker, doesn’t drop her. Her boot connects with its jaw once, twice, she feels the bone shatter. She’s free, and Rey hauls her up over the fallen column and out into the snow.

“Damn it, stay in there!”

Rey is shouting, ice is groaning and shattering behind her, but she can’t do anything more than lay there. Rose feels rather than sees the Force gather around Rey. It sucks the wind out of the air. She definitely feels the chest-shaking _whump_ as Rey forces the hollow closed. She expects Rey to collapse next to her but she gets quite the opposite.

“Come on, Rose, we gotta go.” Rey fits gloved hands under her arms and Rose can’t help but shout.

“Easy,” she pants, clutching her left arm, “easy.”

Words escape her, the world gets woozy real quick, and she stumbles into Rey on the snowy terrain. Rey’s arms wrap around her and she shivers; whether from the cold or the contact, she’s not sure.

“Kriff, Rose, I’m so sorry, but we gotta go.”

In a decisive move, Rey slings Rose’s arm over her shoulders and fits a hand around her waist. Rey moves them on, like Rose weighs no more than the snow on her coat, and she’s a little starstruck. Maybe it’s the pain, or the cold, the proximity, or some combination of the three, but words are really hard. Like _really_ hard, and all she can say is, “Wow.”

Rey pants but manages a laugh. “Don’t wow yet, we still have to get back to the _Falcon_.”

Rose means to reply, but words are still hard and she can only focus on one thing at a time, really. Right now, it’s getting one foot in front of the other.

At last, the _Falcon_ weaves into view through the snow. Rey hauls them up the ramp and Rose sighs at the blessedly warm interior. The Jedi disappears a second only for the _Falcon’s_ life support systems to come fully online and blast heat into the air. Rose groans, leans back again the wall. She’s trying to luxuriate in the lack of wind and snow but Rey’s hands are back and scrabbling at the zipper of her coat.

“I’m so sorry, this is going to hurt, I’m sorry,” Rey says, frantic and repetitious.

“What are you—” Her words cut short when Rey starts pulling her coat down. Pain blooms and throbs at any sort of motion and she hisses in through her teeth, slides down the wall to the floor.

“Sorry, sorry,” Rey follows. “You’ve got to try to relax for me. Come on, breathe. In and out.”

Rose grits her teeth, swallows another groan, but does as she’s told. She takes a deep breath in and Rey’s hands are on her arm, turning it in small circles. She blows the air out of her nose as Rey works the motion up, starting Rose’s arm flush to her side then 90 degrees. There’s a sudden twist and pop and white-hot pain blossoms in her shoulder but it feels _right_ again. She squeezes her eyes shut, tries to breathe.

Rey tears off her gloves. Rose feels her hands, warm and solid on the front and back of her shoulder. This time, she doesn’t say anything, but that same Force feeling creeps, sucking the air out of the room. Rose pushes her eyes open and looks at Rey. The Jedi’s eyes are closed, her brow furrowed, and there’s a pleasant tingle emanating from her hands to Rose’s skin. Little by little, the pain lessens and, after a time, Rey drops her hands.

Rose still feels spacey, but everything is manageable.

“Are you alright?” Rey’s eyes are holding hers, maybe a little desperately.

Or maybe she’s imagining it.

“What was that?” Her voice rasps more than she’d like.

“Just a bit of healing.” Rey’s fingers tuck some stray hair behind Rose’s ear and her skin tingles at the contact. “I’d dislocated your shoulder. I’m sorry.”

Rey peers at her, gaze a little too soft, a little too tender, and the quiet stretches between them.

“Thank you.” Rose breaks it first, clearing her throat and moving to get up.

Rey springs to her feet, offers her hand. “I’ll find something for your arm.”

Rose lets Rey pull her to her feet and only nods, making her way to the cockpit. Her limbs are heavy but there’s still work to be done. Outside the viewport, the snow still swirls in howling wind. Off in the distance, she imagines the depot. It’s probably ten kilometers or more so she can’t see it now but the scanners show it off in the valley, hunkered deep and undisturbed in the snowdrifts.

Something sparks in her mind. An idea. A hunch, maybe.

“Here.” Rey is back, holding out a scarf tied into a loop.

“They used to mine coaxium here, right?” Rose asks as she fits the makeshift sling over her shoulder. With her arm resting on it, the pain eases and she can think more clearly. “That’s what the report said.”

Rey cocks her head to the side. “Yeah?”

“Imperials would’ve left behind a lot of tech if they bailed in a hurry.”

Rose smiles as Rey’s eyes light.

“You think some of the machines still work?” Rey’s asking but she’s already firing up the _Falcon_ and getting airborne.

“Maybe.”

It’s a risky plan, they don’t have a lot of time. Finn and Poe are definitely in danger, hell _they’re_ in danger, but—

“Head for the depot.” Rose leans over Rey’s seat and wills this to work. “I’ve got an idea.”


	7. Finn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i feel like the dialogue is hokey in this one bois so just bear with me, hope it's passable

Silence and darkness greet him when Finn finally gets to the bottom of the steps. Really, he should pull out Rey’s lightsaber but something tells him that might be a terrible idea. Instead, he creeps to the edge of the space, feeling along the wall. Poe is somewhere in this room, he just has to find out where.

He manages to take about five steps before he hears a lilting, gasping voice.

“You have conquered the shade.”

Rey’s saber is in his hand and ignited before he can think about it. The golden light reveals the room is vast, higher and lower and wider than he could have possibly imagined. In the center stands a figure.

Stars, he’d passed right by it as he left the stairs and hadn’t noticed. And it’s huge. He can barely discern its outline, towering four meters or more, but it makes his skin crawl.

“You…should not have defeated the shadows, warmonger.” Its speech hisses as it breathes; a whisper as it inhales, deep and guttural as it exhales.

“I’m here for my friend.” His voice is stronger than he feels. But the clarity hasn’t left him, and he’s sure that this is the final test.

The figure turns, jerks toward him. It moves with the same stilted motion the shadows did but it’s infinitely worse for its size. As it creeps into the light, Finn squares his shoulders. Its hooves click on the icy floor.

Something in him hardens when he meets its horrible white eyes.

After Poe’s shade, there’s nothing in the creature that can horrify him.

“Your friend,” it gasps, “has been claimed.”

“So give him _back_ ,” Finn demands, holding the saber higher so he can see the creature in its entirety.

The Kod’yok head hisses and wheezes and it takes Finn a second to realize it’s laughing. It steps closer and the same horrible odor that clung to the shadows hits his nose. Defiantly, he lifts his chin and rises to meet it. The fetid aroma doesn’t gag him now, doesn’t fill his lungs.

“Give him to me, maybe I won’t destroy you.” His voice is even, steady. Lethal in its intent.

The thing seems taken aback; its horrible laughter chokes to a stop. “I am the keeper of creatures of blood, consumer of savage souls. From my darkness, none return.”

Its clawed, distended hands reach for him. He raises the blade but it reaches past, plucking a torch from the wall. In its grasp, the light burns white, blinding him momentarily.

“Look, and know his fate.” The creature holds the light aloft, illuminating row upon row of horrible twisted faces. All around him, Finn sees creatures trapped beneath a thin layer of ice and suddenly his eyes land upon a familiar figure, only meters away.

His gut clenches. “No, no no no—” He dashes past the creature and crashes into the wall, wiping away a thin layer of icy condensation.

It can’t be.

But it is.

It’s Poe.

Trapped, beneath the ice. His arms are twisted out from his side, fingers outstretched in one last desperate grasp. His face, _stars his face_. His eyes are squeezed shut, mouth distorted into a panicked scream. Rage builds in Finn’s chest, white-hot and all consuming. He grips Rey’s saber so tight he’s sure it’s going to snap.

Was he wrong? Is he—

“Is he dead?” The question rips from his chest. He wants to know, he’s desperate to know, but he’s not sure if he wants the answer. All his focus narrows to the beast.

“Your bond…is strong. He lives,” the creature gasps, “but not for long. You will meet the same fate and too, will end.”

A wave of relief washes over him but he doesn’t let it distract him. He focuses on the rage, levels the point of the saber at the creature. “You can’t have him,” he spits. “And you won’t have me.”

The beast hisses its laughter again, rising to its full height and gesturing with its torch.

“Foolish child.”

Finn grips the saber with both hands. Some aching power flows through his limbs, its heady control heavy on his shoulders. _What is this?_

“Yesss, let the dark consume you. You…are in the heart of the darkness. There is no escape.” It raises a fist above its head. “The ice will hold you. The shades failed, but it will not.”

As it speaks, Finn feels a chill creep up his ankles. Mist is swirling from the beast’s raised hand to drift around the floor; he tries to take a step and his boots stick. His fury, his fear, every molecule of rancor in his body spirals to his feet. Layers of ice build and build even though he’s moving. It creeps over his boots, freezes him in place, panic takes shape in his heart.

Then, a whisper.

A familiar voice, barely tangible in the dark.

He stops. There’s an inkling, a feeling. He focuses on it and breathes it to life. Poe’s spark heats and pulses in his chest and his emotions clear. The beast shrieks but again, there is only clarity. Only surety. The ice recedes from his feet and he takes a step forward.

The creature swipes at him. He side-steps, ducks as it comes around. Its clawed hand passes over him and he follows with the blade. An ungodly, terrible screech fills the catacomb; its hand hits the floor with a dull thud, severed.

He watches as the flesh remaining strips away. Only bones lie on the icy floor. For a split second, neither move.

Then he’s sprinting forward, sliding between the beast’s jackknife legs. He rises, slashes at its thighs and it falls forward, catching itself on its stump wrist and remaining hand. He’s not sure how it happens but he vaults himself into the air, gaining an inordinate amount of height and speed and he lands squarely on the beast’s back.

The creature bucks, he nearly loses his footing, but he grips it by the horns. It’s screaming, hurling age-old curses in a language lost to time. With a decisive motion, he thrusts the saber’s blade into the back of its neck, holding on for dear life as it thrashes to its death.

Its skitters on the ice, its flesh erodes and withers, sucking his boots into its fading putrescence, and with one final heaving jerk he’s thrown from its back. He shouts, connects with the wall, the air knocked out of him. Rey’s saber slips from his grasp, the torches dim again, and he hits the floor.

But there’s silence.

In the faint light, the creature is still, no more than a pile of bones now.

For an instant, he catches his breath, then he’s on his feet again.

With a pull of his will, Rey’s saber is back in his hand. He races along the wall to where Poe is still imprisoned and hopes that this will work. Careful not to get to close, he plunges the blade into the ice; it hisses and spits.

But it’s working.

The ice is melting.

First, Poe’s fingers are exposed, grasping again like he’d never stopped. Then his arms, his chest. When his lips finally touch the air, the last of his scream rips through him into the silence and Finn’s heart breaks. With one hand, he clutches Poe’s frigid fingers, murmuring soft assurances like he really can promise everything will be all right. Poe’s ears aren’t free yet, he doesn’t know if he can hear him, but he babbles on anyway.

“It’s ok, it’s alright buddy, I got you.” The ice is almost gone, Poe’s clothes are soaking. “You’re almost out, I’ve got you, I promise.”

Icy water sluices down Poe’s face, his shoulders, and he comes tumbling out, legs cracking through what remains around his shins. Finn catches him as he falls. Together, they slump to the ground. He wraps one arm around Poe’s shoulders, propping him in his lap, and his free hand pushes Poe’s wet, limp curls back from his face. His expression’s gone slack. He’s breathing, but only just, flesh freezing to a bluish tint. It’s a reminder of the shade, the start of what could be Poe’s end, and Finn feels sick to his stomach.

“Poe? Poe!” He pats Poe’s cheeks gently, desperate for his eyes to open. “C’mon buddy, wake up. You gotta wake up, please.”

Searing tears threaten him again and Finn feels his throat tighten. He hugs Poe close, rocks him back and forth unconsciously.

“Please, Poe. Please wake up.”

His voice is no more than a whisper.

Time distorts, drags, one moment stretching into the next into infinity until finally he hears a soft sound.

“Finn?”


	8. Poe

Finn’s voice is cracking. Poe can feel him in the dark; Finn’s arms are around his shoulders and he’s shaking. The world is muzzy, cotton-ish to all his senses but he’s sure Finn is there. Whatever yawning oubliette that swallowed him is fading, the nightmares receding, disappearing at Finn’s gentle pleading.

“Finn?”

His voice comes out softer than he’d like—less than a whisper really—and his tongue feels thick, almost as if he hasn’t used it in ages. Maybe he hasn’t? He has no idea where he is, what time it is. He doesn’t even know why he’s _wet_ but he knows for sure that Finn is with him and that he’s upset.

The last thing he wants is for Finn to be upset. His big, pretty dark eyes aren’t supposed to cry, damn it, and Poe can definitely feel his chest hitch with a silent sob.

He tries again. “Finn?”

This time, Finn hears him.

“Stars, Poe _you’re alive_.” The words come out tight, like Finn can barely breathe.

“Yeah, I’m h-here,” he stutters. He’s starting to shiver, the chill from his wet clothes finally sinking into his skin. Kriff, it’s freezing in here. Wherever here is.

And on top of that, everything is dark.

He blinks, twice, and everything is still dark.

“Where’s the light, buddy?”

He hears Finn suck in a sharp breath and his grip around Poe’s shoulders stiffens. An icicle of fear, not his own, worms between his shoulders. He doesn’t know exactly what he said wrong but Poe reaches out to touch, to comfort.

Oh, _bad_ idea.

“Aw _kriff_ ,” he hisses. “Everything hurts. Why does everything hurt?”

Finn doesn’t answer for a long moment. Then, he asks, “Poe, what do you remember?”

Poe frowns, focusing on some distant spot in the blackness and turning through his memories. Some details come back into focus. His ship, the depot, a feeling of cold terror.

Ok, now _that_ surprises him. But he keeps it to himself. Whatever that was, Finn doesn’t need another thing to worry about.

“Not much,” he hedges, struggling to sit upright. Every muscle in his body aches but with Finn’s help he’s able to get vertical. “Care to fill me in?”

He can’t see it but he can imagine the expression crossing Finn’s face in the ensuing silence. Whatever the story is, it clearly isn’t good. Finn’s probably biting the inside of his bottom lip, looking anywhere but Poe’s face. Kriff, he wishes he could _actually_ see it.

“Well, if you can’t tell me, can you at least turn on a light?”

“Poe.” Finn’s voice is shaky. “There are lights on.”

A shiver of dread creeps up his spine and he blinks again. Hard. He rubs at his eyes but doesn’t even see spots.

“Finn—”

“I think you have hibernation sickness.” Finn cuts him off before the dread can spiral into panic and for that, Poe is grateful. “We’re underground, you’ve been trapped in ice.I—I just got you out.”

Poe squirms, desperate to move and get some feeling into his fingers and toes. “Hibernation sickness?” he echoes. Kriff, how long was he in the ice? His eyes would work again, right? A sharp, suffocating panic starts to build in his chest until Finn squeezes him, grounding him.

“C’mon, we gotta get out of here.”

He couldn’t agree more; only one problem with that.

“Buddy, I can’t see. How’re we supposed to get out of here when we’ve only got one set of working eyes?”

He feels Finn’s gloved hand slip around his own and a warm tingling sensation trickles from his head to his toes.

“Don’t worry, I’ve got you.” Finn is soft, earnest, and Poe desperately wishes he could see his face. “Follow me.”

He feels Finn rise next to him, his hand never losing contact. Gingerly, he pulls Poe to his feet and shoulders his arm, pressing to his side is a warm line. Together, they take about twenty steps, boots creaking across what feels like ice until his heel catches on a ledge of sorts. He flails a little but Finn’s grip is firm and he doesn’t let him fall.

“Stairs,” Finn murmurs.

Stairs? What kind of underground place has stairs? Questions burn in his throat but Poe decides it’s best, for now, to focus on one thing at a time.

One foot in front of the other.

It’s slow-going in the ascent. Finn steps in time with him, keeps a close watch on his feet to make sure he doesn’t trip. It feels like a spiral staircase but he can’t be positive. With each step, the cold sinks further and further into his bones, sitting heavy and making his limbs drag. By the time they reach the top, Finn is all but carrying him.

Poe can feel himself shaking as Finn eases him to the floor.

“Wait here,” he pants, which makes Poe cross his arms over his chest.

Or maybe that’s the cold. Either way, it’s not like he has a choice. He can’t feel his fingers anymore and he’s pretty sure his feet stuck to the stairs about halfway up. He hears Finn striding to the left. He pauses, shifts. Then, Poe hears a soft curse slip out of Finn’s mouth. There’s some rustling, a sound of ice scraping against ice, and a couple dull thumps which Poe assumes is Finn kicking at something.

“Well th-that doesn’t s-sound good.”

His teeth are chattering so much he can’t get a word out straight.

“It’s not,” Finn admits, “but I’ve got an idea.” He hears a quiet familiar beep.

A distress signal.

Finn must’ve had one in his jacket or his pack or somewhere. 

“How l-long you think until someone gets that?” he shudders. He doesn’t mean to but at the rate he’s going, it’s a fair question. He feels the air twist as Finn spins toward him, which is a weird thing to feel at all. In an instant, Finn is back at his side, warm hands burning against the frigid skin of his cheeks. Poe tries to chastise, pull away, but his jaw has locked up.

“Oh no,” Finn breathes. He turns one hand over and presses the back of it to Poe’s forehead. “We gotta get you warm.”

Poe hears more rustling, a gentle _fwap_ of some fabric unrolling and a zipper grinding, and he feels a little cloud of warmth waft his way. Then Finn’s hands are back, working at the zipper of his own jacket.

“We gotta get you out of these, into something warm,” Finn mutters.

“Y’know, this isn’t how I imagined you gettin’ my clothes off,” he retorts, a little delirious.

He tries to help but he’s not sure if his hands are even moving like he wants them to—he can’t see if his fingers clench and he certainly can’t feel it. Everything feels light and floaty, like a spiraling free-fall in his X-wing. Finn scoffs and bats his hands away.

“When we get out of this, you can tell me all about how you imagined it.”

“M-might just tell you right now, just in case,” he slurs. Kriff, even his tongue is cold.

He can’t see it but he can feel Finn’s resolve in the way he strips the shirt and jacket from his shoulders. Cold air bites his skin. He didn’t think it was possible but he feels even colder. Everything’s a little less clear, more hazy even in the dark. His mind is spinning its wheel, unable to focus on anything but Finn’s hands and his voice.

“Don’t you even, Dameron, we’re getting out of here.”

_One way or another_.

He doesn’t say it but Poe knows that’s what he means. A thought strikes him and he’s just muddled enough to let it slip out.

“Y’know that’s what I love about you?”

Finn’s hands falter near his feet before he asks, “What?”

He realizes his boots are off but he can really only feel it from the ankle up.

“Y-you’re so damn determined when you put your m-mind to it.” Finn scoffs again but this time it’s a little softer. “I love that about you.”

_I love you,_ is what he wants to say. But his jaw’s locked up again and Finn’s fingers are undoing his belt in the least sexy way he can imagine so he makes a pitiful little noise instead. 

“Hang on, we’re almost done.”

There’s a sharp tug and suddenly his trousers are around his knees and there’s ice on his ass. He yelps, tries to scramble up only to remember that yes, everything does in fact still hurt. It’s somehow _worse_ , tiny pins and needles pricking in his arms and legs. He hears a slide of fabric on ice and something soft around his shins.

“C’mon, stick your legs in here,” Finn grunts, pulling what feels like a sleeping bag up to his waist.

He creeps his way in, sliding on the soft fabric. Once he’s up to his shoulders, Finn slips in next to him and _oh stars_ —

The warmth of Finn’s skin is exhilarating and Poe groans as he sinks into it. Finn hisses through clenched teeth as Poe burrows against his chest but he murmurs soft encouragement and Poe can’t bring himself to care how cold his hands are. Finn’s arms come up, circle around him again, pull him closer under the sleeping bag until there’s nothing left but the heat of his breath and his body.

Poe can’t even admit to himself how long he’s thought of this, how much he’s wanted it. Well, maybe not in this particular circumstance but beggars can’t be choosers, he thinks deliriously. He knows Finn is whispering something against his hair but he can’t quite make it out. His body is shaking too much to let him focus on anything else. He’s finally getting warm but everything hurts and the ache is sucking the will to stay awake right out of him. Poe laughs, maybe a little bitterly.

“There’s so much I w-wanted to do with you,” he admits, his face buried in Finn’s neck.

_Because why not?_ It feels like he’s dying so might as well get out that bedside confession. There’s more to it, he knows, but it’s harder to say than he thought. Finn grips him tighter and runs a hot hand up and down his back. Poe’s torn; part of him is still desperate to see Finn’s face and the other is suddenly glad he can’t.

“You still can,” Finn murmurs. He jostles closer and suddenly there’s a leg between his knees and Finn’s stomach is pressed solidly against him. “You will. We’re gonna get to do all those thing, you’ll see. We’re gonna get out of here.”

_Maybe he’s right_. He takes a deep breath in, savoring the scent of Finn’s skin and the heat in his lungs. “Promise?”

Finn’s so close and so warm Poe’s positive he’s going to catch fire. An ember in his chest burns white hot and every doubt he ever had starts to leach away. He’s not sure but he thinks he feels Finn’s lips press against his hair.

“I promise.”

The tension trickles from his bones and he melts. He’s safe. Poe lets his eyes slip closed and he sighs, at ease at last. If Finn means it, he’ll do anything to make it happen, Poe’s certain of that. One way or another.


	9. Finn

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> oh my god guys this hurt

Poe’s breathing is evening out and he’s finally stopped shivering. He fell asleep ages ago but Finn’s mind has been running blank all the while.

He needs a plan, there’s got to be a plan, but he keeps coming up blank. As much as he doesn’t want to admit it, he’s not sure how they are going to get out of there. Rose, thank the stars, _did_ think of everything. The distress beacon flashes at him from his jacket lapel, which is good. That means Rey and Rose could find them. But the how of getting to the room is what he’s racking his brain for. The stairs to the room below have disappeared and the only exit to the white room is blocked with ice. Finn’s not sure how it happened but the columns have collapsed. Maybe when he killed the Kod’yok creature something happened? It doesn’t really matter, he supposes. All that’s left is the phosphorescent glow of the white room and Poe’s gentle breathing.

He doesn’t even know what time it is, how long he’s been gone. Time feels like it’s been stretched and twisted, like so much of what he’s seen in the maze. He doesn’t have much training with the Force yet, but he can feel it’s been distorted here. The paths, the shades, the beast, everything in the maze is a malformation of something real. A contortion of truth.

Well, except for one thing. There’s a truth he’s holding on to and, thankfully, he’s alive and clinging to him like a dianoga. Finn shifts onto his back, easing Poe along with him so he’s spread over his chest, still asleep and buried in the sleeping bag’s warm cocoon. The little ember in his heart warms at that, a sharp burn of pleasure that snuffs out the hopelessness swirling in his head. There’s got to be something. And as long as they’re alive, he’ll find it.

_But what to do?_

Maybe he can use the saber, melt through the ice? It would take some time but it could work. Or maybe there’s a hidden opening in the room like there was before? But how would he even get Poe out? All his clothes are soaked and icy; if he puts them back on, he’ll get hypothermic again and they’ll have to stop. Nothing in the soft glow of the ceiling is answering his questions but he stares at it and wills it to anyway. Whatever they do, he can’t do it now. Poe needs to rest, so rest they will.

He’s not sure how long he stares, but at some point light turns to dark and he’s drifted to sleep.

When he wakes, it’s because he hears Poe talking. And laughing. And there’s a bed somehow? It smells just like Poe and kind of like him and he’s _so_ confused. He blinks blearily, sits up. A thick, soft blanket slides down and pools around his waist, tangling him in it. When he manages to extricate himself, he follows the sound of Poe’s voice. He finds him in a kitchen. In a house. The walls are painted bright happy colors, knick-knacks and holos sit on every surface. There are windows open, letting in a fresh breeze and the morning calls of whisper birds. Poe stands at the cooktop, frying something that smells sweet and amazing in an iron pan, and a man and a woman he doesn’t recognize are sitting at the bar in front of him.

Finn leans on the kitchen doorjamb, incredulous. He doesn’t think he’s ever seen Poe look this happy. The corners of his dark eyes are creased with laugh lines, smiling as he pops a piece of bright fruit in his mouth. The soft sunlight from the window catches the silver in his curls when he nods enthusiastically at what the man has said. Something in Finn’s chest catches and he has to take a deep breath in to not be overwhelmed by it all. There’s a feeling here so different, so _good_ , that he doesn’t ever want to leave.

But he remembers. The ice. The maze.

This can’t be real. Even if he desperately wants it to be. _Just another trick of the maze_ , he thinks bitterly. With a heavy sigh, he steps into the kitchen. When Poe catches sight of him, his eyes light up like Finn’s the best thing he’s ever seen and his heart breaks a little more.

Poe bounds around the bar, engulfs him in a tender hug. “Good morning!”

Finn’s about to ask what the kriff is happening when Poe plants a happy, open kiss on his mouth.

Every muscle in his body freezes then, before he can think about it, his lips are parting and he’s kissing Poe back. Poe’s lips are warm, his tongue still tastes of the sweet fruit he’s eaten. A hand finds its way behind Poe’s neck, holding on like it’s the last thing he’ll do. Stars, it feels so good to finally, _finally_ be able to do it that the dread and the pressing knowledge that _this isn’t real_ fades for just a moment. He kisses him until he’s aching with it.

But that gives him away. Poe pulls back and he’s caught. There’s a flicker in Poe’s eyes and the kitchen flashes in and out of focus.

“Finn?” Poe’s fingers trace his jaw and he can’t help but lean into the touch. “What’s wrong?”

Finn links his fingers with Poe’s and holds his hand flush to his cheek for a long moment. Then he sighs and says, “We need to talk.”

Poe frowns. It’s the first sign of unhappiness Finn’s seen on his face in this perfect world and Finn hates it. The man and woman flicker, turned and staring at him from their seats. With a sense of despair, he recognizes them from the holos kept in Poe’s quarters back on Ajan Kloss. Something is wrong with their faces, their eyes black and smeared, mouths agape and jutting with sharpened teeth, but he knows exactly who they are. He knows that this must be a dream. Poe’s dream.

Something in the maze must be connecting them.

It strikes him in that moment that Poe kisses him, is happy with him here, and a little voice in his heart wonders if that would be true in the real world.

He squashes the question and squeezes Poe’s hand instead, ignoring the horrible faces staring from over his shoulder.

“Come on.”

He leaves his fingers entwined with Poe’s and pulls him from the kitchen. It’s a dream, so the bedroom is the only other space he can find. The room flashes, trembles again as he settles on the edge of the bed and eases Poe down next to him.

“Finn, sweetheart, what’s going on?”

The endearment is so bittersweet it aches. Finn smiles but it must not reach his eyes because Poe is looking at him with no small amount of concern. His thumb is tracing a soothing pattern on the back of his hand and it gives Finn the strength he needs.

“This is a dream,” he says, letting out a deep breath.

Kriff, it hurts to even say it.

Poe’s frown deepens and he doesn’t seem to believe him. “Sweetheart, what are you talkin’ about?” He looks around, over his shoulder like he’ll see something that will prove it a joke.

It stings, but Finn somehow knows exactly what will prove it true. There’s a tremor in the Force, plucking the string that binds them, and it’s there that he’ll find his proof. He just doesn’t want to do it.

“It’s a dream, Poe, you have to believe me. You and I are trapped on a planet called Vandor. In the ice maze, remember?”

“No, this is Yavin 4,” Poe says, obstinate and sure. “This is our home, we’re having my parents over for breakfast?”

He says it like it’s the most natural thing in the world, like it’s true and Finn’s the one spouting off something crazy.

At that, he stops and considers.

Maybe he is?

Maybe all of that was just a dream. The maze, Rose and Rey, maybe it was all just a very long, _very_ vivid dream. _Wouldn’t it be nice if it was?_ a nasty little voice whispers. If it was a dream, that means he can stay here with Poe and be happy. They have a home, a life. Here he sleeps next to Poe and kisses him in the soft morning light.

Finn hesitates.

The house starts shaking.

He was wrong.

This is the last test.

It’s perfect and he wants to cry, knowing he has to let it go.

Well, if this is it, he’s at least going to use the time he has. Tenderly, he brings Poe’s knuckles to his lips and smears a kiss across them. He settles more comfortably on the bed and pulls Poe just a fraction closer, turned to face him. Their knees are touching, their air shared in the small space left between them.

“Poe…”

He chokes. There’s something he wants to say; it burns in his throat.

Before the pilot can speak, Finn’s leaning in the rest of the way, pressing a kiss to his parted lips. Poe makes a confused noise in the back of his throat then he melts, leans forward and wraps arm around Finn’s neck and pushes into his lap. Finn gentles him in, spreads Poe’s knees over his thighs, bites at his bottom lip. With one hand, he holds tight to Poe’s hip and fans the fingers of the other over Poe’s heart. There, he feels Shara Bey’s ring, still a constant fixture even in dreams. It’s hard to breathe, it’s hard to _think_ with Poe’s hands on his face and his tongue in his mouth.

But he pulls away.

The house shakes again, holos falling and windows cracking.

With one soft last kiss, Finn sits back. He closes his eyes so he doesn’t have to see Poe’s. With a deep breath in, and out, he centers on the warm feeling in his chest. It’s Poe as he knows him, and a part himself. Poe’s arrogance, Finn’s fears, all their shared history. There's attachment. Fondness. Love. Blending together into a bond that connects them through good and bad, light and dark. He feels it in his chest, pulls it taut. Poe gasps and arches against him. Finn circles his arm around Poe’s back, holds him tight. He wretchedly hopes that bond will still exist in the real world, that what he’s about to do won’t splinter it into a thousand shards.

“Poe,” he murmurs, burying his face in Poe’s shoulder, “when we wake up, please remember that I love you.”

He reaches across the bond again and opens the gate. Whatever words Poe might’ve said are lost as all of his memories come pouring back. The transport, the beast, the suffocating feeling of being trapped in ice. Every memory flashes in front of Finn’s eyes as Poe sees them and all he can do is hold on. The house quakes and shivers. Debris rains down around them. Poe’s shouting, screaming, clutching at Finn and coming to pieces.

Finn clenches his eyes shut and holds on until the dream shakes itself apart.

He wakes.

This time in the real world.

Poe is thrashing and panting in the sleeping bag next to him.

Somehow, just his luck, the maze is shaking itself apart.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> final chapter will be posted tomorrow 3/23/20


	10. Resolution

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> sorry this one took so long, i had it all written out then i went back and redid the fucker  
> also it's like twice as long as the other chapters but i couldn't bring myself to break it up  
> anyway thanks for tagging along for the ride, hope you had as much fun as i did!

Rose’s teeth vibrate as the huge machine crawls through the snow. She looks down at the tracker, at the light blinking over Finn’s supposed location. Stars, she hopes this is right.

“Left, then up over the hill.” The beacon only activated a little while ago, surely it’s sending the right location.

Rey grunts, shifting the treads in the right direction. “Are you sure this is gonna work?”

Rose grits her teeth, the shaking migrates to her ears. “This thing was used to drill for coaxium back in the days of the Empire. It’s meant to withstand several tons of ice and unless I’m going crazy, it looks like it’s been covered with blastproof durasteel plates.” She huffs a little helplessly. “As long as the mechanism spins, the drill should work.”

Rey shifts the treads again, adjusts the pitch so they don’t tumble ass over ears down the hill. “How in the world did you know how to fix it?”

She sounds impressed and Rose can’t help but preen a little.

“Star Destroyers weren’t the only thing I had to research for Leia.” She grins when Rey looks back at her with raised eyebrows. “You should see the old Imperial database. No one’d ever get through it, not in a million years. It’s amazing what you can find. But…it wasn’t missing any parts. Just needed a little love.”

“No buts, you’re the best mechanic I’ve ever seen,” Rey says with a smirk. “And I’ve seen me.”

Rose smiles back but she ducks her head to get away from those pretty hazel eyes that are a little too staid even when she teases. Rey’s eyes can peel her apart and now is not the time. She checks the tracker again.

“Wait! Stop here!”

The drill grinds to a halt and the treads settle right over the beacon’s signal.

“Ok, left toggle,” she instructs. Rey’s hands hop to obey. “Get the stabilizers settled.”

With a flick of the switch, the machine shakes and the stabilizers unfold, sinking deep into the snow until they bite into bedrock ice.

“Use the right joystick, get the drillhead at an angle. If we go straight down, we won’t get back out.”

Rey purses her lips but she doesn’t argue. Yet. Rose is learning to read that expression and it says there’s going to be words on that later. The boom of the drill swings overhead and into position.

“Ok, this should be pretty easy from here. Just use the trigger to speed up or slow down. There’s gotta be a cave or something down there so ease off when you punch through.”

Rey looks back at her again, waiting for the word. Rose takes a deep breath but she nods.

Rey’s finger squeezes the trigger and the drill starts spinning. For a second, there’s no resistance as it bites through the snow. Then it hits ice and the whole mechanism starts to squeal.

“I hope this works.”

—

The ceiling is falling in.

Finn shouts, scrambles out onto the ice as the roof of the white room caves in around him. Poe is trapped, both in his dream and the sleeping bag. In nothing but his underwear, he hauls Poe and the bag to the wall’s edge. With one hand, he covers his head and he leans over Poe, still mumbling and thrashing. His blaster is somewhere, long forgotten since the start of the maze.

More ice falls in a terrible shrieking squeal. It’s deafening and for an instant, Finn has to cover his ears. Poe shoots awake. He scrabbles up into Finn’s space, covering his own ears but still in the sleeping bag.

“Finn! What the hell is that noise?”

He pulls Poe close, out of the way of a large falling chunk, but before he can answer there’s a bit, a giant _drill bit_ protruding from the ceiling. It punches through into the cave’s void and whirls to a stop.

Finn stares at it, dumbfounded, and it starts to recede.

“Finn, what the hell is going on?”

Poe grasps in his general direction but can’t seem to focus on anything. Still blind then. Finn catches his flailing hand and gives it a reassuring squeeze.

“Either Rose and Rey found us,” he mutters, “or we’re in big trouble.”

At last, he spies his blaster, a meter or so away under a pile of ice. He dives for it, crouches in front of Poe and steadies his shot, finger ready on the trigger. He’s starting to shake with the cold but there’s a _shik_ as something or someone starts sliding down the hole.

No time for a jacket.

He levels the barrel at the opening then—

“Finn!”

Rey’s familiar voice echoes down the tunnel, followed shortly by her feet then her arms and head and a sled. There’s a rope around her wrist but she drops it as quickly as he drops his blaster.

“Rey!” He’s on his feet, dashing to meet her halfway.

“Finn, oh thank the stars.” She throws her arms around his neck and he yelps at the ice on her jacket.

“Rey, is that you?”

She looks over his shoulder at Poe in the bag. “Poe, you’re ok! What are you—wait. Finn, why are you _naked_?”

“Finn’s naked?”

“No, I’m not _naked_.”

“You so are! What the hell happened to you? Why is Poe is a bag?”

“I still have pants on—”

“Poe’s fine, thank you for asking.”

Finn’s mouth narrows and he looks over his shoulder to find Poe trying to stagger to his feet—he curses. Gods-damned bravado-spouting flyboy. “Hey, hey! Don’t do that, can you even feel your feet?”

Of course, he doesn’t listen. He wobbles, the sleeping bag sliding down and over his knees and very abruptly he’s exposed. Like, _all_ of him is exposed.

“Oh kriff, _he’s naked!_ ”

Rey’s face colors red and she spins on the spot. Finn scrambles for the sleeping bag, unzipping it and wrapping it around Poe’s shoulders before he throws on his own coat. The hem of the thermojacket barely hits the top of his ass but it'll do for now.

“He’s not naked anymore.” Finn throws an arm around Poe’s waist and holds him steady as he shoves Poe’s feet back into his boots.

“Why were _either_ of you naked?” Rey huffs, gathering the rest of their clothes and his pack from the room.

“Maybe they don’t have hypothermia on Jakku but it’s definitely a thing here.”

“I was a popsicle. A Poe-sicle. Took some thawing out.”

Finn rolls his eyes and pulls on his own boots. A part of him hates how nonchalant Poe sounds about it but at least he’s remembering what happened. Maybe he’ll remember more…

Rey shoots him a quizzical look.

“It’s a long story.” Finn tightens his hand around Poe’s waist and hefts him close now that they’re both steady. “Let’s just get outta here.”

It’s an easy process, easier than it rightfully should be. No Kod’yok skulls hiss with laughter, no shades of rotted flesh follow. Whatever darkness that dwelled in the maze is gone. Rose is waiting at the top of the tunnel, working a winch to wind them back in. It’s a tight fit but Rey steers the drill machine back to the _Falcon_ and in just over an hour they’re airborne, headed back to base.

Poe protests leaving the coaxium just long enough for Finn to get his limbs shoved into some thermo gear and his ass into bed. Then he’s out like a light, overwhelmed by the activity and the heat. He spies Rose and Rey in the cockpit, heads bent together, whispering softly. A brief check-in then he begs off to sleep himself. He’s tired, the ship’s course is set, and there’s little worry about now.

There will be time for the story to unfold later, if it can even be believed. It’s not something he looks forward to telling.

He trudges back to the bunks on the _Falcon_ and drops into a bed next to Poe. He wants to crawl into the _same_ bed, wonders if it would smell like a mix of them as it did in the dream, but he’s not sure if he’d be welcome. So he settles back and lets sleep come.

—

“Do you think they’ll be alright?” Rose asks.

Rey glances at her. “Yes, they’ll be alright. I think it’ll just take some time.”

“What do you think happened in there?” Rose is obviously aching to know. Her eyes keep flitting from Rey’s face to the bunks where Poe and Finn are sleeping.

Rey takes a moment to parse her answer. Finn had felt…different, once they’d had a quiet moment. She’d sensed it in him. Not a darkness but a heaviness. Something weighed on his shoulders, the brightness in him felt a little sharper. “I…I don’t know,” she admits. “Something bad, I think.”

Rose turns to face her fully and raises an eyebrow. “Yeah, I figured that. If there were things like the creatures we saw in there, of course it was bad.”

Rey stares at the flight controls, a little chagrinned.

“How bad though?”

“It’s hard to explain,” she hedges. "I think I'd have to show you."

Rose's brows creep a little higher but Rey slips off her gloves, holds out her hands. After a moment of hesitation, Rose gets the idea and places her hands in Rey's. With a deep breath, she closes her eyes and reaches out into the Force. Finn feels sharp and heavy even as he sleeps. Poe is there too, though a little dimmer. The feeling is nebulous, flowing like quicksilver but when she finally gets it right, she pushes it out, just a little bit.

Or maybe more than she thought. Rose gasps, hands clenching around hers. It destabilizes her, draws her focus, and now there’s _way_ more passing between them than she meant.

She sees Finn and Poe, the golden bond stretched tight between them. It glows, just faintly, and that’s the heaviness around Finn’s shoulders. Whatever is between them is open, unresolved, eating away at them both. _That’s_ what she meant to show.

But she also sees Rose, clear and bright as brass. The point of contact between them resonates and Rey sucks in a sharp breath. _She’s_ _beautiful._

A longing she’s pushed deep down rises in her chest, flooding through her, through their connection. She knows that. Of course she knows that, it’s just never been said out loud. The quick of her wit and the curl of her smile makes it plain for anyone to see. Rey sees it. She aches with it, with an easy affection, the touch of their hands. Only, she hadn’t meant to show Rose that.

And Rose sees it, there’s no doubt.

With a breath, Rey’s eyes fly open. Rose is staring at her, cheeks flushed, lips parted.

“ _What_ was that?”

She’s demanding but she doesn’t drop her hands.

“Um—”

“You…” Rose falters, squeezes her hands a little too tight. “You think I’m beautiful?”

Rey melts. Her smile wobbles, wretched and longing. With a trembling hand, she tucks an errant strand of hair behind Rose’s ear.

“How could I not?”

Rose’s hand catches hers; she presses a kiss to her palm. She smiles, and Rey feels unmoored, weightless. Exhilarated.

“Why didn’t you tell me sooner?”

Rey’s cheeks hurt with the grin spreading across her face. _Well, what a happy accident._

—

When he wakes, it’s because he hears Finn talking. Consciousness is slow to return, his head is heavy and everything is still slightly blurry, like a film’s covering his eyes. Thank the stars, at least he can see _something_. But Finn’s somewhere close to him, mumbling and moaning.

Poe squints, turns over in his bunk, and sees Finn just across from him. He’s close enough that Poe sees how drawn his brow is, the fine sheen of sweat on his skin. Whatever he’s dreaming, it looks like it hurts.

“Nn—Poe, wai—” He doesn’t get any whole words out but he gasps and jerks.

Fear—Finn’s fear, he’s sure—stretches tight in his chest, making his breath draw short. He needs to wake him up.

“Hey…”

He slurs, frowns. _Kriff, he’s out of it_. It doesn’t feel wholly his, there’s something else churning in his gut, disorienting him. Poe shifts, settles his feet on the floor. The bunk spins a little when he shuffles to the edge and his knees creak as he forces himself to his feet. He groans, stumbling the short distance to Finn’s bed. Landing gracelessly, he manages not to completely faceplant and braces himself over Finn’s stomach on a hand and knee.

“Hey, buddy.”

He shakes Finn’s shoulder with the other, words coming a little stronger. Finn still doesn’t wake, his expression drawn and muscles taut. A foreign dread twists in his stomach. Poe’s heart clenches as Finn fists his hands in the bedsheets, chest heaving. His hand slides from Finn’s shoulder to his jaw, allows a tender swipe of his thumb across the general’s cheek. He grips Finn’s side with his other hand and shakes.

“Finn, wake up.”

The motion is gentle as his voice but suddenly Finn’s eyes shoot open, his hands scrabbling against Poe’s bare chest before grasping and cleaving to the jacket he’s wearing. For an instant, there’s no recognition is his dark eyes. But only for an instant. His gaze centers on Poe’s face and he settles back against the bunk, heaving a great sigh.

“Poe…what’s going on?”

“You were havin’ a nightmare, I think.” The tension in his chest is starting to unravel as Finn comes out of the dream and Poe breathes more easily. “It felt like you’d wanna wake up.”

Finn’s dark eyes fasten to the ring swinging in the space between them. Then his lips. With a gradual shift, Finn fits a thigh between his knees.

“Yeah…”

His hands still curl in Poe’s jacket but his thumbs brush Poe’s chest, almost absentminded. Finn’s throat bobs as he swallows. Poe’s eyes track the motion; he wets his lips. Stars, he doesn’t remember feeling this…this bond before the maze. At least, not the same way. There’s a new feeling between them, somewhere between apprehension and longing and Poe’s dizzy with it. Maybe it’s always been there? He can’t be sure but the awareness of Finn, the sensations flooding and surrounding him, are enough to make him shudder.

“Poe…” Finn’s voice slides over him, rough, intoxicating.

_What in all the galaxy is this?_

“Do you remember the maze?” His eyes drop from Poe’s lips to his neck. “The dream?”

The fear is back, a spiraling miasma between them, and this time it’s his own. Yes, he does remember. He remembers the cold terror as the ice crept over his face, the suffocating darkness and emptiness of the wall. Claustrophobia claws at him still but he swallows it down. Because he also recalls the dream, their home on Yavin 4, the feel of Finn’s lips.

He remembers.

“Yes.”

He only hopes Finn remembers, too.

“I remember the dream.”

Finn’s face falls and his grip in Poe’s jacket loosens. No, no no, that’s the opposite of what he wants.

“Wait—”

He’s no Jedi but he can _feel_ whatever is between them. He can’t let it go. It lives as deep as his bones, as hot as his blood. He closes his eyes and reaches out to it. It shimmers, alive and wild as fire. In an instant, the heat blooms to searing. Finn gasps and arches against him, making his eyes fly wide and hungry.

“How—how did—”

“I don’t know,” Poe groans, “but I remember. You said—” He chokes, Finn’s thigh pressing hot against his groin. “—that you loved me.”

He’s hovering out of reach, bracing himself on either side of Finn’s shoulders. Finn’s hands migrate from Poe jacket to his sides, pushing the fabric back. “I do,” he whispers.

There’s a vulnerableness to him, something tender leaching through the bond between them. _Do you love me too?_ It’s the question Finn wants to ask but doesn’t dare voice, Poe can feel it. Finn’s eyes are hot and wanting, desire pours off him in waves, but he waits. If he wants, he can back out now, Poe realizes. Finn would let him, wouldn’t push for anything more than he’s willing to give. Poe heart clenches. He leans in, just centimeters away.

“You were in my dream,” he murmurs, answering Finn’s silent question, “so you gotta know I love you too.”

He sinks, closes the distance and presses his lips to Finn’s. There’s a groan reverberating deep in Finn’s chest, his arms come up to circle Poe’s waist and pull him down. Their limbs slot together, rise, grind. Poe’s lids flutter. The bond between them glows white-hot, burning into every molecule of him, sparking and threatening to burn him down. After all the ice and the chill Poe can barely stand it.

He parts his lips, submerging himself in Finn’s inviting mouth, his unyielding body. Finn’s hands grip his ass and Poe moans. A haze of lust floods him, scorching, torrential. Before he’s totally sure of what he’s doing, his hands are fumbling with Finn’s trousers as Finn pushes against his own. He breaks away, desperate to breathe, gets a gasp in but then Finn’s hand circles around them both; there’s no amount of air that will fill him now. And, _oh_ , that’s _it_. He’s so hard he’s ready to burst. Finn’s cock is stiff and hot and leaking against his own, _stars_ , Finn’s pulling them together, pushing him to an edge he didn’t even know he was on.

“Finn, _ah—_ ”

It’s amazing he can even get his name out. Finn makes a strangled sound; he can’t respond any better than Poe but the pull and twist of his wrist falters at his name.

“Sweetheart, _kriff,_ don’t stop. Gods, please don’t stop—”

Finn surges into his space, shoving his tongue in Poe’s mouth and fisting a hand tight in his hair. Poe moans, keens; it tears his throat like a wound. Finn’s stroke escalates, pleasure pulls taut tight at the base of Poe’s spine. His eyes squeeze tight, he gasps, thrusting into Finn’s hand, light and heat and fire sparking behind his lids. Finn groans in response, body straining. He’s falling, pulling Poe along with him. He cries out as Finn sinks his teeth into his throat and suddenly every nerve is alight. Pleasure spirals in his veins, spinning him higher and higher until he can take no more—and he collapses, boneless and spent.

They pant together in the small space. The bond between them flickers lazily, satisfied but undiminished. Poe feels lighter. So light he could float away. Finn kisses his lips, his cheek, his forehead, anywhere he can reach, which makes Poe chuckle.

“Wow…”

He means for something more witty to come out but kriff he can hardly remember his own name.

“Yeah?” Finn laughs gently, making Poe bob where he’s stretched over his chest.

Poe snorts. “Apparently, yeah. Wish I’d known about this bond thing sooner.”

He’s teasing but Finn suddenly sobers and Poe winces. Too bad his foot is already in his mouth or he’d kick himself.

“I would’ve told you,” Finn whispers, “only…”

“You didn’t know either.” Poe’s sure of that, he can feel it through their connection. Through the Force, if he wanted to sound hokey about it. “Sweetheart, I’m not mad. I remember what you showed me in the dream. It helped you find me, got you out of there safe. How could I be mad about something like that?”

The tension dies on Finn’s face and they settle together a little easier. The quiet stretches for a long moment, soft between them. He loves it, if he’s honest, but of course he has to break it. He needs to know they’re good so he does it the only way he knows how.

“So’s this mean you’re a Jedi?”

Finn scoffs gently. “Maybe. We’ll have to ask Rey, I guess.”

“It definitely means I get to keep you though, right? I feel like the Force wants me to keep you.”

Finn laughs again and Poe smiles against him. It’s good to hear him laugh. There’ll be time to talk, to get things sorted out but now is just for them. Poe can’t help the content feeling that spreads over his face and into their bond; he presses a kiss to Finn’s chest.

“Yeah,” Finn replies, smacking a kiss high on his cheek, “I guess that means you’re stuck with me.”

Serene and safe, Poe settles back in with a sigh, “Lucky me.”


End file.
